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What is the Magic Number? 

The average gift you would need monthly per donor if you were to cap your support team at 60-75 people. 

This naturally leads those raising toward a larger goal to be asking for larger investments. 

How to calculate your Magic Number

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:

• Take your total monthly support goal (make sure it’s updated!)
• Divide your goal by

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• 70  (or 75 if both you and your spouse will work MTD, or 60 if it's just you raising and you're an introvert)
• This will give you the average dollar amount you should be challenging new and current donors to give. 
  **If a supporter is already giving above your magic number, please continue to ask them for an increase. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you to an amount.**

Example:

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$7,000/month support goal divided by 70 =$100. That means the amount you ask people to give (or increase to), should be right around $100/month. *If

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your magic number is below $100, it's recommended you still ask most people to prayerfully consider giving "$100, or some other amount." 

Why does it matter? 

First off, it works. Donors feel honored and missionaries become funded.

Our support team feels honored while giving us the capacity to continually cultivate with a discipleship mindset. This means personal phone calls and knowing our supporters, as well as them knowing us. We simply cannot do this well if we have too many people on our support team. This is where the Magic Number comes in. By intentionally asking people to invest generously, we create the space to honor our supporters by investing generously into them. 

It builds long-term sustainability. When a raise or budget increase occurs, current donors are naturally engaged in increase asks vs seeking out more and more new donors to join the team. 

What are other Reliant missionaries saying about this? 

• Josiah: Initially, I was super afraid to ask this amount (Magic Number of $150). It seemed like too big/ too much to ask for some of the people I was calling (like the guy who is just two years out of school). But, it's gone really well. I've been surprised. Even the people who can't do that amount have thanked me for asking them and have said they feel honored. Those positive responses have been really encouraging to me to keep making this ask in this way. (Raised $1,000 in new monthly in 2 months working 1.5-2 days a week on MTD.)
  
  
• Kevin: When calculating my Magic Number, I took into account some other factors like donors I knew who were at their max giving amount. My number ended being larger than I felt comfortable asking. But, I felt God’s hand in it and decided to try it for a month. The result? Every single increase ask AND new supporter came in at that amount. It was such a breath of fresh air! 
  
  
• Sarah: Using the Magic Number in my increase ask has been helpful in thinking how many supporters I can handle while also maintaining connection with them. I appreciated putting the magic # out there because it gave me the freedom to talk about my reality of wanting relationship and connection with my donors. "The reason I'm asking this amount is for the purpose of building the right team - and the right size team - for seeing this work accomplished." When I put my magic # out there, people consider it! It helps me to share vision and purpose behind the magic number I put in front of them. After Sarah shared this in a cohort, one of the other people on the call expressed concern over offending someone who can only give a small amount. He gave the example of a teacher on a small salary. Here’s how Sarah related: I've worked as a teacher on a very low salary for most of my life. The missionaries I support… well, I wish I had someone help me think through, "who am I investing in and what's the impact of my giving? Am I giving to these people because I feel obligated or out of a joyful heart? Am I really praying over all 8 of these missionaries as frequently as I want to? How can I put my money where my heart is?" As a teacher who made very little, I would have really appreciated having one of the missionaries I supported taking the time to educate me, ask some of those questions and help me be more intentional and prayerful in my financial partnerships.